Me, My Ramblings, and a Little Bit of Good Ole' Fashioned Childish Tongue Spitting Out at You!! :)

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Wacky Mac

Kosher Mac and Cheese.

I love Wacky Mac. It brings childhood memories of boxed "artificial" mac and cheese to a kosher kitchen. And with fun shaped noodles too! Not that I don't love real and homemade mac and cheese, but who has time to make it so often? So I get the boxed kind for quick comfort pleasures on cranky evenings.

What makes regular "Kraft" or other brands Mac and Cheese unkosher? Rennet.

Cheese is made by coagulating milk to make curds which are then separated from the liquid, whey. The curds are then processed and matured to produce cheese. Milk is coagulated by the addition of rennet. The active ingredient of rennet is the enzyme, chymosin (also known as rennin). The usual source of rennet is the stomach of slaughtered newly-born calves.

Under Kashrut, Milk and Meat cannot be mixed. So putting an animal product into milk to make cheese is a BIG NO NO. Kosher cheese is made with vegetable, or microbial or artificially produced rennet, of course supervised by a Rabbi.

Anyway so Wacky Mac doen't have animal rennet and is supervised by a Rabbi so it is a Kosher produce found in the Kosher section of the supermarket.

So my question is this, why on a kosher product do they tell you to enhance the mac and cheese dinner to add ham or bacon to the product? Hmmmm, milk and meat? A kosher no no! Pork? Also Kosher a no no! Adding pork meat to cheese? A double kosher no no!! TREIF POLICE!!! HELP!! THE PIG IN THE DAIRY SINK IS WAVING TO ME AGAIN!!!

Scuse me. Long story.

Anyway, just one of those Kosher mysteries that I thought I'd BLOG about and share with the world.